Pages

Friday, 19 May 2017

Hello everyone and welcome to the June edition of our Birthday Blossoms series. The birth flowers for June are roses and honeysuckle. I opted to make rose cards as there are so many lovely rose stamps, dies, embossing folders etc. and they are such a popular flower.As always we are offering a prize draw through this post, please see the bottom to find out how you can enter.

For the first card I went for a white on white background using a lovely rose embossing folder to add some dimension and less traditional lilac roses for a splash of colour.

The card base is white 15 x 15cm which I trimmed down to about 13.8cm square to be slightly bigger than the size of the embossing folder. I embossed a piece of white card and attached that to the card base then cut a second piece of white card and die cut a curved edge with a cut out design and attached that to the top half of the card.

The flowers are ready made mulberry paper roses that come with wire stems which a wrapped round a bamboo bbq skewer to get the spiral effect and added three die cut leaf stems in dark green card.

I cut a small strip of white card, added a silver Happy Birthday peel off for the greeting and attached this with foam pads to lift it off the embossed background slightly.

I am pleased with this card, it didn't take long to make and the basic design could be adapted to make lovely wedding cards.

Having just received stock of the new First Edition paper pad called Sweet Nothings, I was delighted to find that it was even nicer in the flesh than it looked online, I couldn't wait to use it. The rose on wood plank design was perfect for what I had in mind and the plain wood plank design was easy to stamp on.

I used a white A6 card blank, layered pink and green card and the rose on wood plank paper onto it. I cut a rectangle of pink card 8 x 5cm and layered green card and the plain wood plank paper on top of that.

I stamped a rose in black ink onto the wood plank paper and colored it with marker pens. I wrapped a piece of pink grosgrain ribbon around the stamped rectangle and tied a knot in the front, then attached the whole thing to the card front using adhesive foam pads.

The birthday greeting is a die cut gold on white greeting which I inked with Tattered Rose distress ink before attaching it to the card again using foam pads.

Something else that I have recently added to our stock is a Rose Color Layering Stamp Set and some sets of ink pad cubes, I used the stamp set to make the roses for this card along with the pink ink cubes.

I started out with a white 12.5cm square white card blank and cut dark pink paper to be slightly smaller and attached that to the card front.

I cut a piece of white card to 12.3 x 9cm and die cut the bottom edge using the Curved Borders 2 die set, I can't believe how much I have used this set! The dies are big enough to cut a 15cm wide piece of card so I positioned the die to one side of my piece of card so that I only used two thirds of the die, then attached the die cut piece on top of the pink card.

I stamped the roses onto white card, I found that card with a smooth surface worked best for these dye inks and that the colors lighten and even out as the inks dry so don't worry if they don't look great at first. The dye inks dry quickly so it's easy to stamp one color on top of another without them blending into each other. Once stamped I cut them out and arranged them on the card as shown along with some die cut leaves and some self adhesive pearls, I used adhesive foam pads for the middle rose to lift it a little.

The greeting is from an A4 sheet of die cut messages in silver on white.

Hi Everyone
I'm back to my Card-io stamps for this Fathers Day card, I do enjoy stamping with these stamps, they offer so many possibilities, just pick your colors and away you go! This card will go to my husband so I went a step further and made a matching envelope.

I used a white 12.5 x 12.5cm blank card and envelope and stamped directly on to the card. I stamped the leaves and hops first stamping two or three times without re-inking to give different depths of color. Then stamped the beer bottles re-inking each time so they are the same color.

The greeting is a gold peel off sticker on beige card, layered on to dark brown card.

For the envelope I repeated the stamping on the card on the envelope flap.

I'm pleased with it, I hope he likes it too.
Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment to let me know what you think.
Debbie x

Hi EveryoneCongratulations if you have someone who is graduating from university or college this summer, why not reward their hard work with a congratulatory card? This card is very simple and would work in plenty of other colour schemes, these colours might be nice for a male graduate.

I cut a white square card blank down to 11.5 x 15cm and the cut a slightly smaller piece of yellow card and black card smaller again. I embossed the black card with the graduation hats design and layered the card as seen above.

I cut a scalloped circle and two plain circles in alternating colours of card for the centrepiece and stamped the top yellow circle in black with the Congratulations text box stamp.

I hand cut black card to make the graduation cap and tied several strands of yellow embroidery silk together to make the tassel, which I glued to the top of the cap and then attached the whole thing to the edge of the centre piece.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you like it, please leave your comments to let me know what you think.

Hi Everyone
I know from your comments that everyone finds it more difficult to make cards for men. This Hunkydory card kit makes a quick and easy job of this Fathers Day card, with a couple of added extras. There is enough in the kit to make a second or even third card, which makes it excellent value.

The kit contains one A4 card blank and and A4 topper sheet with football and rugby images.

I folded the A4 card to make an A5 card and popped out the three oval football images, they come out pretty cleanly but if there are any notches of card you can smooth these out with a nail file or craft sanding block. I layered up the three ovals using adhesive foam pads and tucked a couple of loops of gold ribbon under one side before gluing it to the card front.

The kit contains two greetings but neither of them is for Fathers Day so I found some orange, purple and gold card that co-ordinated with the colors on the card blank cut them into rectangles and layered them up with a gold Fathers Day greeting on top.

Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Hi Everyone
Today's card is to congratulate a graduate. As far as I know each university has different colors for different degrees, when I checked on the course that my son took the color was described as 'middle green', I googled some pictures of graduates from the University of Leeds and found an example of the color. I also discovered that graduates of this university don't wear the mortar board hats, so it's worth checking on the university website for as much information as possible before designing your card.

As you can see the card is very straightforward, what you might not be able to see very well as I photographed it on a black background is that the card base is black. I used the appropriate color of green for a layer on top of the black, for the 'V' on the gown and the backing for the greeting.

I wanted to add some extra interest as the card is quite plain so I used a stitch line die to create the stitched edge around the white layer. I hand cut the pieces of card for the gown and rolled up a tiny piece of paper for the scroll and tied a tiny piece of narrow gold ribbon around it.

The gown is mounted on gold card to match the ribbon around the scroll, and the gold metal dots at either end of the greeting.

The greeting itself is a black peel off on white and green card and mounted on foam pads to give some extra dimension.